Jordan Berry [00:00:00]:
In August of 2024, the biggest company in our industry wrote a check for $900 million, nearly a billion dollars. Not to build a factory, not to develop a new washer, not to lower prices for laundromat owners like you. They borrowed that money, added it to the company’s debt, and paid it out to their private equity owner. $900 million out the door 14 months before taking the company home public. And here’s the part that should really get your attention. Over the two years since then, that same company has been paying that debt back down using profits that come in part from every washer you buy, every loan you take out with them, and every price increase you’ve absorbed. The Wall street calls this strengthening the balance sheet. That’s a direct quote.

Jordan Berry [00:00:49]:
Their credit rating agencies love it and their stock is up. But nobody, and I mean nobody, has sat down and asked what it means for the 40 laundromat owners on the other end of that supply chain. That’s you and me. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do today. This is the deepest dive we’ve ever done on this show into a single company. It’s Alliance Laundry holdings, the maker of Speed Queen, Unimac, hips Primus, and Ipso, the company that controls roughly 40% of the commercial laundry market in North America. And as you’re going to hear, a company that is now quietly operating on five different fronts in this industry at the same time. Manufacturing is just the one that you can see by the end of this episode.

Jordan Berry [00:01:36]:
I’m going to show you all five fronts. I’m going to tell you what I think their next three moves are and I’m going to give you a five point checklist to protect your business as a laundromat owner. And stick around for front number five, because when I found it during my research, I literally stopped and reread it three times. It’s the one nobody in this industry is talking about. And it’s personal. So let’s go. So who is alliance really? Let’s set the table. Because I bet most owners know the brands but not the machine behind them.

Jordan Berry [00:02:10]:
Alliance Laundry holdings was founded in 1908. It’s not a typo. 118 years ago in Ripon, Wisconsin, population about 7,500 people. And that little town is still their global headquarters today, running an operation that serves roughly 150 countries with over 4, 000 employees. Here’s the scale and plain numbers, and these come straight from their SEC filings and earnings reports. About $1.75 billion in annual revenue and climbing roughly 40% of the North American commercial laundry market. Their own IPO prospectus says that they’re about twice the size of the number two player. Over 8 million machines installed worldwide.

Jordan Berry [00:02:58]:
5 brands covering every corner of the market. Speed Queen for laundromats and homes. Unimac for on premise laundry. Hips, Primus and ipso. Now, quick history that matters for everything else in this episode in 2015, a private equity firm called BDT Capital Partners. Now it’s BDT and MSD Partners Bot Alliance. If the name MSD rings a bell, that’s Michael Dell’s family office money. These are serious, patient, sophisticated investors.

Jordan Berry [00:03:29]:
And they held it for 10 years. A classic private equity timeline. And In October of 2025, they took alliance public on the New York Stock exchange under ticker ALH Alliance Laundry Holdings. The IPO, priced at $22 a share, raised over $826 million. And actually it’s about 950 million once the over allotment closed and the Stock popped almost 13 on day one. Today the company is worth about $5 billion. Just for your reference today as I’m recording this, their, their ticker for ALH is 25.86 cents. That’s up from their initial public offering.

Jordan Berry [00:04:12]:
But here’s what most people missed in the IPO excitement. And it’s the whole detail that unlocks this whole story. BDT didn’t sell out when they went public. They kept roughly 74 of the company under New York Stock Exchange rules. That makes alliance what’s called a controlled company. It’s public stock, private control. A private equity firm steers the. They just invited public shareholders aboard and gave them very liquid way to sell down over time.

Jordan Berry [00:04:43]:
And remember that 900 million from the cold open, that dividend went to BDT in August of 2024, funded with debt loaded onto Alliance’s books. Then a chunk of the IPO money, money from public investors, went to paying that debt down. That sequence feels a little bit like watching someone else’s poker game where you’re somehow the ante. Hold that feeling because it sets up everything alliance has done since then. Which we’re going to get into here in a second. Quick pause. If you’re listening to this and you own speed queen hips or unimac equipment right now, do me a favor while you listen or watch, pull up whoever sold you those machines, the distributor that that sold them to you and keep that name in your head. In about 10 minutes, I’m going to Ask you some questions about them that might surprise you.

Jordan Berry [00:05:35]:
Let’s talk about the balance sheet story, what getting stronger actually looks like. Okay, so what has alliance actually done since going public? In one sentence, they’ve been paying down debt at a sprint while growing at a run. The numbers from their earnings releases, the start of 2025, about $2.1 billion in debt. The end of 2025, $1.4 billion. And after the first quarter of 2026, $1.3 billion. They paid off another 65 million in just those three months. In finance terms, their net leverage debt compared to earning dropped from 2.8 times at the end of last year to 2.6 times in Q1. And management says they’re going to hit roughly two times by the end of this year.

Jordan Berry [00:06:25]:
On their Q1 earnings call in May 2026, CFO Dean Nolden told analysts they’d, quote, continue to strengthen our balance sheet and we’re on track for the full year target. And the market rewarded them. Just a few days ago. As I record this June 29, Moody’s upgraded Alliance’s credit rating from B2 to B1. I just reported that on the news episode. S and P had already upgraded them. What does that mean in practice? Borrowing gets cheaper. For alliance, their cost of capital drops.

Jordan Berry [00:07:00]:
Now, here’s the crucial context, and this is where I want you to lean in here a little bit. This is not a struggling company tightening its belt. In the first quarter of 2026, alliance grew revenue 10% to $427 million. Net income more than tripled year over year to $57 million. They beat Wall Street’s earning expectations by about 15%. And they raised their guidance for the year. So picture this company for what it actually is. It’s growing double digits.

Jordan Berry [00:07:31]:
It’s throwing off $80 million in operating cash flow a quarter, paying down debt ahead of schedule, with credit agencies applauding. This is a company building dry powder. Got to pay attention to this. And the question that matters for you is dry powder for what? Because on the same earnings call, management told us exactly what they laid out. A four pillar capital plan. And they said that once the debt target is hit, which is basically now, the priorities shift to. And this is a quote, returning capital to shareholders, stock buybacks in the near term, dividends in the longer term. Okay, so let me translate that from Wall street speak into Laundromat speak.

Jordan Berry [00:08:18]:
When a dominant supplier pivots from pay down debt to protect earnings per share for shareholders, history across every industry says the same thing. Pricing discipline gets tighter, not looser. The days of your distributor having wiggle room to make a deal work, those days are getting structurally shorter. Speaking of pricing, let’s talk about what you’re actually paying. Here’s a fun exercise. On Alliance’s Q1 earnings call, their CFO broke down that 10% revenue growth into its ingredients. Real unit volume, actual additional machines sold was about 3%. Foreign currency added about 1%.

Jordan Berry [00:09:00]:
The rest, the majority of the 10% growth of revenue came from price price. Now, alliance frames this as defensive and to be fair, some of it genuinely is. Tariffs on steel and imported components, they’re hitting them for about 20 million dollars a year. They disclose four and a half to five million dollar tariff bill in Q1 alone. Steel is their single biggest input cost. Those are real costs. And their CFO said plainly that price increases taken in mid to late 2025 and again in early 2026 were designed to cover those costs. But do the math with me here, because this is the tell.

Jordan Berry [00:09:38]:
If pricing were only covering the $20 million in tariffs, that’s a little over 1% of revenue. Instead, pricing is driving the majority of that 10 growth. Their own CFO described the company’s approach as, in his words, quote, rational pricing. And in their Q1 slides, they proudly note that pricing quote successfully offset, unquote tariff headwinds while North America still ran a 27% EBITDA margin. Listen, just to be clear, that’s not a company scraping by on cost recovery. It’s what economists call pricing power, the ability to raise prices faster than costs without losing customers. And you only get pricing power when your customers don’t have anywhere else to go. Which in my mind raises the obvious question, do you have anywhere else to go? Hold that thought, because some of my findings that I’m going to talk about in a few minutes here are really going to complicate that answer in a way you probably don’t expect.

Jordan Berry [00:10:40]:
So what this means for you practically right now, if you’re modeling a new store build or a retrofit, do not model flat equipment costs. A typical full equipment package, call it two dozen machines that ran 160 to $210,000 installed a couple years back, it’s been climbing steadily. And every public signal from alliance as the climb continues. When I run deal analysis with our clients that I do all the time from all over the country and other countries as well, we are now building price escalation into every equipment line item as a base case, not the downside case. I’d suggest that you do the same. And hey, if you’ve bought machines in the last 12 months, I’d love to hear what you actually paid versus what you were quoted two years ago because we’re starting to see some of those prices stiffen up. And I’ve also seen quite a few quotes that are much, much higher than than what I would consider a, a normal quote. And I get to see quotes all over the place.

Jordan Berry [00:11:44]:
Real numbers from real owners. Be any analyst report and I’ll tell you where to send that at the end of this show. If you want to shoot over your quote and hear you know, how it compares to other quotes that I’ve seen from around the country. Front number two, buying the middleman. Okay, remember I asked you to keep your distributor’s name in your head. Here’s the question. Do you know who owns them? Because there’s a very real chance the answer has changed recently and you were never told in a way that made the stakes clear. Alliance sells through a network of roughly 600 independent distributors.

Jordan Berry [00:12:22]:
The local businesses that quote you finance you install your machines, answer the phone when a bearing goes out at 9pm on Saturday or doesn’t answer the phone. More likely for a hundred years those were mostly independent family owned businesses. However, starting in 2023 and accelerating hard, alliance has been buying them straight from their SEC filings. Once again, this is from the horse’s mouth. Here’s the timeline that I’ve been able to dig up. November 2023, Taylor Houseman, Northern California. July 2024 Star Distributing, Nashville. September 2024 L&R Laundry, Salt Lake City.

Jordan Berry [00:13:05]:
October 2024 Best Way Distributing, Corona, California. Late 2025 Metropolitan Laundry, the leading distributor in Metro New York. March 2026. Super Laundry, also New York folded into the same New York Metro office as the Metropolitan. That’s six distributor acquisitions in about two and a half years, including two in New York City alone. One of the biggest laundromat markets in America and I’d argue in the world. When they announced the Super Laundry deal, Alliance’s VP for the region called it. This is a quote, perfect complement unquote to the Metropolitan deal.

Jordan Berry [00:13:44]:
Promising quote, next level service and support. And look, I do want to be fair here because I always want to be fair with you. And with alliance, the consolidated operations often genuinely do mean better parts, inventory, more technicians, faster response. Too soon to tell if that’s going to be the case. But some owners in these markets will experience real improvements. And I’m not here to tell you the sky is falling, that’s for sure. I’m just trying to tell you what’s going on in the industry. In every one of those markets, the number of independent voices between you and the manufacturer just went down by 1.

Jordan Berry [00:14:20]:
When your distributor is owned by the manufacturer, here’s some of the implications. The price is the manufacturer’s price. There’s no independent business person deciding to shave margin to win your deal against the shop across town. The financing offer is the manufacturer’s financing offer, which it has been for a long time. So that really isn’t changing too much. And when you’re negotiating a big package, you are functionally negotiating with a $5 billion public company that reports its margins to Wall street every 90 days. Now, here’s where the story takes a turn. That was kind of surprising to me, actually, because when I started looking into this, I assumed alliance was the only one playing this game, and they’re not.

Jordan Berry [00:15:04]:
There’s a second consolidator buying up laundry distributors across America, a company most laundromat owners have never even heard of. And I have been watching for a little bit now. And whether you end up better or worse off in the next five years may depend on which one gets to your market first, potentially. So let me introduce you the counterweight, EVI Industries. There’s a publicly traded company out of Miami called EVI Industries. Their stock ticker is EVI, for obvious reasons. And since 2016, under a CEO named Henry Namad, they have quietly made 32 acquisitions of commercial laundry distributors and service companies. 32.

Jordan Berry [00:15:48]:
The revenue has grown roughly 10 times over that stretch to about $390 million a year. And they now hold an estimated 9% of North American Laundry Distribution, the largest distributor on the continent. You may have never even heard of EVI because, well, that’s by design. When they buy a distributor, they keep the local name, keep the team, keep the owner running it. They, the customer often barely notices. Their recent deals include ASN Laundry Group in New York, Balenki in Ohio. And this is a big one. Their largest acquisition ever in 2025.

Jordan Berry [00:16:26]:
Jabrow North America, the US arm of the Spanish equipment maker now rebranded, as you probably heard of it, as Continental Jabra or Continental Laundry solutions, adding about $50 million in annual revenue. So stop and appreciate this chessboard we’ve got going on for a second here, because this is wild. The same 12 months, one equipment manufacturer, alliance, was buying distributors, while another manufacturer, Jabrow, sold its distribution arm to a distributor. The whole middle layer of this industry is being carved up from both ends. But here’s the difference that might matter enormously for you. And it’s the reason I call it evi the counterweight in this situation. Alliance owned distribution sells alliance equipment. One manufacturer, one brand family, one pricing philosophy.

Jordan Berry [00:17:19]:
EVI owned distribution is multi brand. Their subsidiaries can quote you on Alliance Equipment, Jabrow, Milner, Dexter, whoever fits your project. And EVI makes money either way. Their whole pitch to Wall street is being the trusted advisor layer. Namah literally says, this is a quote. Customers do not buy brands, they buy trust, relationships and expertise. Unquote. True or not true, I don’t know.

Jordan Berry [00:17:49]:
So the real story of distribution in this industry is not alliance takes over, it’s this. The era of the truly independent mom and pop distributor seems to be coming to an end and it’s being replaced by two competing models. The manufacturer owned dealership versus the consolidated multi brand superstore. Industry analysts covering EVI have flagged exactly this tension. Manufacturers buying distributors squeeze multi line players and everyone’s racing for the best remaining independence. So hey, that might be good news out there if you’re a distributor, independent distributor looking to exit. Maybe, maybe you got something coming your way. And by the way, the rest of the competitive field still exists.

Jordan Berry [00:18:36]:
Dexter out of Iowa, Milner out of Louisiana, Electrolux, Professional, Continental, Jabrow, and now even LG and Whirlpool are pushing harder into commercial laundry. Globally, the top five equipment players hold over 70% of the market. Alliance is the giant. But, but it is not the only option. And honestly, keeping the alternatives healthy is partly in our hands, yours and mine. Every time you insist on a competitive quote, the single, this is, this is important. Okay? The single most actionable thing in this entire episode is this. And you know, I’m all about action here.

Jordan Berry [00:19:13]:
Find out who owns your distributor, Independent, alliance owned or EVI owned. Each one changes your negotiating playbook. So let’s just talk about that for a second. If you have an independent distributor, you have the most flexibility. Nurture that relationship. Some of that advice that’s been given around and I’ve, I’ve had a little bit of a, you know, argument about some of this with, with other people who were talking about this in the industry saying your distributor is one of your biggest assets or can be. Well listen, if you have an independent distributor and they’re truly helpful, nurture that relationship. Get quotes in writing while the getting is good.

Jordan Berry [00:19:55]:
Because again, prices are only going up and pricing is only getting more fixated. If you have an alliance owned distributor in your area, Expect polished service and firm pricing. Always, always price check against a multi brand alternative if you have the option even from the next market over. And the, this is, this is huge because again, I have seen quotes that have been egregiously overpriced and you know, the, the person getting the quote would never know it because they haven’t seen any other quotes. And I just have the benefit of having seen lots of different quotes. Again, it might be interesting for us to share some of those quotes with each other so that we can know, you know, what everybody else is getting quoted on and whether or not we’re getting a decent deal or not. EVI owned distributors use the multibrand access, make them earn the deal across brands. Now seriously, go out and find out this week and when you do, I’d love to hear what you found.

Jordan Berry [00:20:55]:
I’m building a picture of how far this is spread market by market and our communities on the ground. Intel is better than anything I can pull up from SEC filings. You know, I’m doing a lot of research in a lot of different ways, but a lot of this information is coming from SEC filings, news reports, things like that. But when we get together, it’s only going to benefit us. All right, Manufacturing, distribution, that’s two fronts. Let’s talk about the third one, the one where alliance holds the paper on your business front. 3. The bank of Speed Queen.

Jordan Berry [00:21:29]:
Most owners think of alliance as a machine company. They’re also functionally one of the largest specialty lenders in the laundromat industry. Speed Queen Financial Services, Alliance’s in house financing arm, has originated roughly $2.8 billion in loans across some 27,000 transactions. By their own marketing, they’ll finance up to 90% of a new store project. And here’s one that raises my eyebrows every time I read it. They’ll finance up to 80% of your purchase of an existing laundromat, even one full of a competitor’s equipment. Think about why a manufacturer would do that. You buy a store today with their money, you replace the machines tomorrow with their machines.

Jordan Berry [00:22:15]:
It’s brilliant. And it’s also a moat that they’re building. They market a 96.85% success rate on their Laundromat loans. And you’ve probably seen that number floating around or something similar to that. And this is based off charge offs from 2007 to 2022, which, you know, credit where it’s due is generally genuinely, it’s a strong stat and a big reason financing through them is so easy. Right now they’re running promos. Well, go look at them because these, these things fluctuate all the time. But a lot of times you can get pretty good deals on their financing terms.

Jordan Berry [00:22:55]:
And it genuinely is probably the easiest way to get financing in this industry. And there’s a layer deeper. Alliance scrutinizes these loans in their Q1 filing. You’ll find $21 million of restricted cash held for, quote, securitization investors, unquote, meaning they bundle your equipment loans and sell them to Wall street, freeing up capital to lend. Again, your monthly payment is somebody’s bond coupon. So follow the full loop on a single transaction. Now, alliance manufactures a washing machine. An alliance owned distributed distributor sells it to you.

Jordan Berry [00:23:32]:
Speed Queen Financial finances it. The loan gets securitized for investors in the machine phones home to their software platform, which is front number four that we’re going to talk about here in a second. The connected machine layer. Alliance now has over 250,000 connected machines in the field. That’s up from about 200,000 just at the IPO last fall. That’s Speed Queen, Insights, Hipsch, Command, Unimat, Core and the rest. Their CEO Mike Shob told analysts in May, quote, our integrated hardware software platform continues to differentiate us in the industry, driving growth and customer loyalty, unquote. And in their SEC filings, digital subscriptions now show up as their own recurring revenue line, which a lot of you guys know about now.

Jordan Berry [00:24:24]:
Let me be straight with you. These tools are pretty good. Remote monitoring, mobile payment options, while not the best out there, is better than nothing loyalty programs that you could recommend. You know, I do recommend owners use some of this stuff, maybe, maybe the Insights, maybe a third party program. But I do recommend that you use them and especially on the payment systems and the data collection, all of that. But use it with clear eyes about two things. One, every month you run your store on their platform, you’re switching costs to another brand goes up. And that is actually the point.

Jordan Berry [00:25:01]:
And their CEO even said so. And two, think about what alliance learns from a quarter million connected machines. Cycle counts, utilization, revenue patterns, neighborhood by neighborhood. That’s the best real time data set on laundromat performance that has ever existed. And it’s proprietary to the company. That also. Well, it brings us front number five, which we’re going to talk about, we’ve talked about before here and we’re going to jump into it because everything I’ve told you so far, the machines, the distributor, the loans, the software, all that still puts alliance on the supplier side of the table. Front five is where they cross over to your side of the table two different ways.

Jordan Berry [00:25:47]:
This is the part I reread three times. I’ve been talking about it for a little while now and you’re probably at least familiar with it. Front five Competing with you and talking to your customers Part one They franchise Laundromats now. Speed Queen Laundry franchises. Probably not news to most of you guys. You’ve probably seen them, you probably heard the horror stories that alliances had no problem putting stores right across the street literally from clients of theirs, customers of theirs who have purchased their machines. And there’s been no respecting of boundaries there. Branded corporate design tech loaded retail laundromats kids play areas 247 staffing, app payments the works.

Jordan Berry [00:26:35]:
Total investment of these is usually 1.2 to $1.9 million from store per store just from talking with these store owners and a franchise fee of around almost $50,000 with a minimum net worth requirement of about $2 million and surprise, up to 90% financing available in house their own franchise marketing sites. FDD returns of 28 to 41% and describes the opportunity as transforming quote a fragmented unquote industry where quote 54 of locations are single store operations. Unquote. Read that sentence again from your seat. You are the fragmentation. We are the fragmentation. The manufacturer that supplies your equipment is recruiting well capitalized investors to open branded corporately supported stores in the same trade areas as independence and describing the independence of this industry as the problem being solved. You hear that we what’s being communicated here is that we are the problem being solved here.

Jordan Berry [00:27:51]:
Is a Speed Queen franchise opening next to you tomorrow? Probably not. The footprint is still small industry wide. That is true, but the strategic direction is unambiguous and a company with a fortress balance sheet, a captive lender and a 5 billion dollar market cap has everything it needs to scale that model whenever it chooses. This is why I’ve been talking about this so much and I know most people out there have not been affected by Speed Queen franchises at this point. But I’m watching what Tide is doing with their franchise, which we’ll do another episode about Tide, but they are selling locations by the handfuls and Speed Queen is set up to be able to do that as well and at least as quickly, if not even more quickly. Here’s part two though. This is the one nobody’s talking about. They’re building media.

Jordan Berry [00:28:52]:
Listen, I’m coming from a media perspective. Laundry Resource is one of the first true media companies in our industry and I’M watching what they’re doing here, which I’ve heard nobody talking about, and they’re not, they’re not full court press in this yet. But I want to talk about it a little bit and what some of the implications of this are. Alliance produces its own podcast for laundromat investors of owners. It’s called Laundromat Nerd or Laundry Nerd Podcast. And it used to be called Laundromat Insights. They changed it to the Laundry Nerd Podcast. It’s produced by Alliance’s own distribution arm featuring experts and owners talking ownership technology, owners ROI strategies.

Jordan Berry [00:29:36]:
And they pair it with content marketing pushing that 96.85% success stat. Demographic analysis, services, site selection help, business planning tools. Does it sound familiar? It should. It’s the same playbook every smart brand runs now. Own the audience, own the education, and you own the customer before they ever get a quote. When a brand new investor Google’s how to buy a laundromat in 2027, alliance intends to be the voice that answers. And the voice that answers happens to manufacture the machines, own the dealership, write the loan, run the software and sell the franchises. Now, full transparency.

Jordan Berry [00:30:19]:
Because, you know, that’s how we do it here. I run a media business in this industry, like I mentioned, Laundromat resource is education and advisory for laundromat owners. So yes, alliance building a media funnel is in some sense alliance moving toward my lane too. Not just with machines and their data collection, all that stuff, but also in the media space. So you should absolutely weigh that when you hear my take on this whole episode. But here’s my honest take anyways. And I’d say this, even if I sold surfboards for a living right here in Hawaii, the difference between manufacturer media and independent media is the difference between a brochure and a second opinion. Alliance’s podcast is never going to run the episode you’re listening to right now.

Jordan Berry [00:31:06]:
Obviously, it’s never going to tell you to get a competing quote from an EVI distributor or to check whether Dexter pencils out better for your store, or to question whether 90% financing at a variable rate is actually good for you rather than good for them. Not because they’re evil, because they’re a supplier. Suppliers educate you toward the sale. That’s their job. And we just need to know this. I’ve said this a lot of times, right when we’re talking with distributors or even brokers in our industry or even other people in our industry, we need to know where their motivations lie. So that we can weigh how much we should pay attention to their voice. Right? And again, this is not to say they don’t have anything valuable to add that they’re giving you bad advice even.

Jordan Berry [00:31:54]:
We just need to understand where their motivations come from. And their motivation clearly is to sell you equipment to finance it for you, and maybe even to sell you a franchise store. Independent Voices this show other creators in this space that you guys have probably seen and heard of owner communities. The guys in the Facebook groups arguing about Venn pricing at midnight. That’s the industry’s immune system. Support it wherever you find, find it. That’s my take on it at least. The other side of the table and where this all goes.

Jordan Berry [00:32:26]:
One more piece to complete the picture. Then I’ll give you my predictions and your checklist of what you should be doing here. It’s not just alliance consolidating Ownership is consolidating too. Laundry Lab Express Laundry Center, Regional rollups, Tide Laundry and others and the big route operators like CSC Service Works and Wash are actively acquiring stores. Current market single stores trading around I’d say four to five and a half times SDE Seller discretionary earnings Multi store platforms are more like four to six times eida more with real estate. Even private equity money that spent the last decade rolling up dentists, H Vac, car wash companies and self storage has discovered laundromats Recession resistant recurring cash flow fast fragmented classic rollup raw material. I’ve been talking about this forever so zoom all the way out. Manufacturing consolidated top 5 hold 70 plus percent globally distribution consolidating fast from two different directions.

Jordan Berry [00:33:34]:
Financing increasingly captive software increasingly captive retail Ownership consolidating media now contested Every single layer of this industry is concentrating at the same time. The only real wild card is Washington. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice has started scrutinizing serial rollup strategies across multiple industries, though nothing specific to laundry yet, just something to kind of keep an eye on. But here are my three predictions and you can hold me to these. Clip this section and check back in 18 months to see whether or not I was right. Prediction 1 the buyback era begins within 12 months and pricing gets firmer, not softer. Alliance hits their 2x leverage target around year end 2026. Management has already told analysts buybacks are next.

Jordan Berry [00:34:32]:
Dividends are after that. Once earnings per share becomes the scoreboard list, price discipline becomes dividend doctrine. No longer flimsy negotiable pricing for us. Maybe it’ll lead to more price transparency. I don’t know that’s a big beef I have with alliance and everybody else in the industry, so we’ll see about that. But plan for equipment inflation to continue as the permanent base case. That’s just gonna be what it’s going to be for us. All right? Prediction two, the distributor land grab accelerates and your market picks a lane.

Jordan Berry [00:35:11]:
Alliance and EVI are now openly racing for the best independent distributors. Cheaper debt after the credit upgrades only fuels it for Alliance. Within three to five years. I genuinely believe most major metros will be effectively two option markets, Alliance Direct or EVI Multibrand. The independence that remain will either be excellent or they’ll be gone. Dun, Dun, dun. Prediction 3, the data flywheel becomes the real moat. A quarter million connected machines feeding usage data +27,000 loan files Franchise Site Analytics.

Jordan Berry [00:35:55]:
Alliance will know which corners of which cities support a laundromat better than any human broker alive. Expect that intelligence to show up in their franchise expansion, their lending decisions, and eventually mark this one in some kind of premium data or benchmarking products sold back to owners. When that launches, remember where you heard it first. Right here. Okay, let me give you a five point checklist. The what do I do of this whole episode. Because there’s a lot of information I threw your way. I made some predictions, but all of it is like, okay, well what do I do with this now? So here’s a few things.

Jordan Berry [00:36:35]:
Here’s five things that I think you should be doing. Number one, we talked about this already. Find out who owns your distributor or the distributors in your market. Do it this week. Independent alliance or EVI changes everything about how you negotiate right now and that’s going to continue to change. So just keep all that in mind. Okay? Number two, never take a single quote again. I don’t know if you’ve been doing that.

Jordan Berry [00:36:58]:
It was a big mistake I made early on as well. But that should not be something you do ever again. If you’ve ever done that. Minimum, two brands, two distribution channels on every meaningful equipment purchase. You’re not just saving money, you’re voting to keep competition alive in our own market, that is what we’re doing here. Number three, always shop the financing separately from the equipment. Speed Queen Financial against your bank, SBA lender, a credit union. Sometimes the captive lender genuinely wins.

Jordan Berry [00:37:33]:
Their approval rates are real. But make them win it. Okay? That doesn’t mean don’t go with their financing options. It means make sure they’re giving you the best option for you. There’s lots of different Tools, Lots of different ways to finance these things. Just make sure that they are your best option for your situation. All right, number four, use the connected tools, your own data posture. Read what the platform agreements say about your store’s data.

Jordan Berry [00:38:02]:
Keep your own records outside of the platform whenever possible. And know your exit costs before you’re all in that data. I’ve been harping about this forever. That data is so important for you to have for your own stores, but it’s going to be probably the most valuable asset if it’s not already that alliance and the other manufacturers have in their arsenal. Even more so than all these other channels. That data is so, so valuable. Okay, number five, build price escalation into every deal model, every build, every retrofit, every acquisition, pro forma flat equipment pricing is a fantasy assumption in this market. All right, I know we’ve been through a lot here in this video, so let me land this way.

Jordan Berry [00:38:50]:
And I always try to honestly, alliance is not a villain. They make genuinely excellent machines. Their reliability record is real. Their warranties lead the industry. Their financing has put thousands of people into ownership who couldn’t have gotten there otherwise. Some of you listening owe your first store to a Speed Queen loan, and that matters. All right, that’s myself. Even my first equipment purchase was Speed Queen equipment.

Jordan Berry [00:39:19]:
But great machines and concentrated power are both true at the same time. What’s changed is that alliance is no longer just your equipment supplier. They’re now your supplier, Potentially your distributor, possibly your lender, probably your software platform, maybe someday your competitor. And as of recently, a voice in your earbuds competing for your trust. Six relationships with one company that answers to Wall street every 90 days. An informed owner isn’t a scared owner. An informed owner is a dangerous negotiator. And that’s what today was about.

Jordan Berry [00:40:00]:
Now here’s how we’re going to keep this conversation going if you’re up for it. Because the story is going to keep developing. Alliance is going to keep doing what they’re doing. And it’s not just them. I want to keep tabs on what everybody’s got going on, and I want us to do it together. So first, go find out who owns your distributor. We talked about that a couple times already. I would love to hear who owns your distributor.

Jordan Berry [00:40:24]:
Drop it in the comments. If you’re watching on YouTube, shoot me an email. Jordan laundromatresource.com Addresses in the show Notes market by market. We’re going to build the real map of this consolidation. And I’ll share What we find on a future episode, I would love to do that have again, that data is important for us to have as owners. Nobody is compiling it for us, so we’ve got to be the ones to compile it. Second, if you bought equipment in the last year or two, I would love to for you to shoot me your real numbers. Like what was your quote, what you paid versus what you were quoted.

Jordan Berry [00:41:01]:
You could do it anonymously. You could, you know, black out any information you don’t want me or anybody else to see. But real owner data beats analyst reports every time. And I will make that information, all that data available for free for anybody who wants it. So if you decide to contribute to that again, jordan, [email protected] Would love to have that available. I know people have been talking about doing that forever and nobody’s ever done it. So maybe this is the, the opportunity for us to jump in and do it. Okay.

Jordan Berry [00:41:33]:
Third, inside the pro community, I’m opening up a dedicated thread on this alliance EVI distributor, Intel financing, quotes people are actually getting. That’s where the ongoing conversation lives between these episodes. So if you’re not in it yet, the links in the show notes laundromatresource.com Pro, come join us over there and be a part of that conversation. And then fourth, if this episode made you think or was insightful in any way, I would love for you to send it to another owner in your market or, or some posted in your Facebook group or whatever. Not for me, I’ve, I don’t think I’ve ever done this on any episode before. But do it for our industry, do it for the owners. For every owner out there that is trying to accomplish your goals, is trying to hit that financial freedom, is trying to replace the 9 to 5, is trying to build cash flows, trying to make a living and feed their family and, and build the life of their dreams. Listen, every owner who understands this landscape makes the whole independent side of this industry harder to squeeze.

Jordan Berry [00:42:39]:
I’m firmly on the side that independent ownership is not a problem to be solved in this industry. It’s something to be nurtured in this industry. So I genuinely think that the more of us that are engaged in this conversation, that understand what’s going on in our industry, it’s going to benefit all of us more and follow the show so you catch the follow up. Because listen, between BDT’s next share sale, the next distributor deal and that leverage target hitting at year end, I promise you there’s going to be some follow ups here. So stay sharp, run your numbers, keep building that freedom. And listen, this is Jordan with Lawnmower Resource and we’ll see you on the next one. Peace.